Internet cooperative brings Web to rural areas

ASHEVILLE - A U.S. Department of Commerce study found that
North Carolina trails most of the nation when it comes to people
having home computers and Internet access.

Experts say much of the blame lies with technology cracks in
rural areas where affordable Internet access is hard to find.

The Mountain Area Information Network (MAIN) has been
addressing that problem since 1996 through a patchwork of leased
phone lines to "long-haul" Internet service to remote areas.

"MAIN brought the Internet to the backwoods," says Leslie
Spragins of Marshall. Local dial-up service through MAIN made the
Internet accessible to people in Madison and other counties who
could not afford longdistance charges through other providers,
she said.

"We had no service before that," Spragins said. "They made it
really easy and affordable for us." Spragins' son has diabetes,
and she uses the Internet to contact support groups and others
for helpful information on coping with the disease.

Her husband, Bill Spragins, established Carolina Natural Beef,
a farmer-owned cooperative that has a presence on MAIN's Blue
Ridge Web Market.

"Our Internet access through MAIN has meant more to us than we
ever thought of or dreamed of," Mrs. Spragins said. Executive
director Wally Bowen says MAIN is a "nonprofit Internet
cooperative on the model of the old rural electric co-ops."

In addition to individual subscribers it also supports 60
public access terminals in libraries, community centers and other
locations.

MAIN hosts more than 250 nonprofit Web sites and recently
launched the Blue Ridge Web Market to help entrepreneurs in
remote mountain communities market their products on the World
Wide Web.

MAIN has brought affordable Internet access to more than 3,000
subscribers in 12 western counties, but the system is limited by
the area's lack of technology infrastructure, Bowen said.

"We're a success story because we have been able to cobble
together this multi-county, co-operative network," he said. "It's
unwieldy, inefficient and expensive, but it does work."

MAIN's phone bill alone averages $15,000 to $20,000 per month,
Bowen said. Businesses and others in the far western counties
that need highspeed band width are at a distinct disadvantage
compared to their competitors in urban areas that can get the
service more cheaply, he said.

"The bottom line is that if there is a business out there in a
remote mountain county that needs a full T-1 line, they are
looking at a cost of $3,000 or $4,000 per month," he said.
"That's three or four times as much as somebody in Charlotte
would pay."

Western North Carolina needs a comprehensive technology
"backbone" of fiber optic cable and microwave towers to deliver
highspeed bandwidth throughout the region, Bowen said.

"Bandwidth for our day and time is what water and power and
other natural resources were for an earlier time," he said. "It
is the energy of economic development. If you don't have it,
that's going to put you at a competitive disadvantage."

Bowen believes the solution lies in the approach taken by
residents of the Berkshire Mountains in a remote area of
Massachusetts.

A task force of civic and business leaders with state help
commissioned a study to come up with a plan for developing a
technology backbone to overcome the area's geographic
disadvantages.

"What they did was an analysis of existing infrastructure and
what kind of upgrade they needed to provide bandwidth comparable
to what businesses in New York and Boston have," he said.

Walt Cooper of Flack and Kurtz Consulting Engineers, the
consulting firm that helped come up with the proposed Berkshire
Connect, said the private sector has expressed interest in
implementing it.

"It seems possible at this point that one or more service
providers will build the network," he said. "If that doesn't
happen, a public/private approach may be used."

"The distinguishing thing about Berkshire Connect is that it
is a local community taking the bull by the horns rather than
waiting for the technology to trickle down to them," Bowen
said.

Cooper will be in Asheville Aug. 31 to explain the Berkshire
Connect model to supporters of N.C. Connect, a state initiative
to see that all areas of the state share in the new information
infrastructure.

"A knowledge-based economy is impossible without plentiful and
affordable bandwidth," Bowen said. "Businesses cannot be
competitive in this day and time if they don't have equal access
to bandwidth."

The Berkshire Connect plan calls for putting together a
network of new fiber optic cable, "dark" cable (lines that are in
place but not currently being used) and microwave towers for
those areas where installing cable is not feasible.

A similar approach would probably be taken for Western North
Carolina, Bowen said. Increased bandwidth would benefit not just
businesses but universities, government, health care and
individuals, he said.

"Part of the charter of Berkshire Connect was to provide a
solution for everybody and not leave anybody short," he said.

Barbara Lange of Burnsville said that Internet access is
crucial to overcoming the barriers of living in WNC's remote
areas.

"We were kind of stuck before MAIN. We would have had to pay
long-distance phone charges for Internet," she said. "There was
no way I could do it."

Getting affordable Internet access enabled her to turn a
parttime hobby into a viable business, Lange said. "It has really
changed my life," she said. "It has made the world a whole lot
smaller for us."